Quo Vadis

Jeremy Lee has been at Quo Vadis since 2012, and in that time the place has found a perfect register: generous without being showy, old-fashioned without being nostalgic. The building itself has a longer history still — a Soho address that’s carried a restaurant under this name since the 1920s — but Lee’s version is the one that’s actually defined the room for the current generation of regulars, rather than simply trading on the inherited name.

This review is really an attempt to explain why that 5-star rating has held steady for over a decade rather than drifting either way.

The Room

Pink walls, white linen, deep banquettes, Windsor chairs looking over Dean Street. The bar sits at ground level; the restaurant is up a narrow staircase, which gives the dining room a slightly removed, private feel despite sitting in the middle of Soho’s busiest streets. It’s a room that photographs beautifully without ever feeling like it was designed primarily for that purpose — the pink walls and the Windsor chairs read as genuine period character rather than a recent, considered choice.

The building has carried a Quo Vadis restaurant, in one form or another, since the 1920s, and stained-glass windows survive from an earlier era of the space, adding a genuine architectural layer that a newer restaurant simply couldn’t replicate. The ground-floor bar is worth a stop on its own if the upstairs dining room is full, offering a quicker, more casual version of the same kitchen’s cooking for anyone not planning a full sit-down lunch.

What to Order

The smoked eel sandwich on toasted soda bread with horseradish; the daily fish tartare; grouse in season — the best in London, and worth planning an autumn visit specifically around if you can time it right. Lee’s menu changes daily depending on what’s arrived that morning, so a fixed recommendation beyond these few standing favourites is somewhat beside the point — trust the blackboard specials as much as the printed menu.

The smoked eel sandwich in particular has become something close to a signature dish without ever being marketed as one — it simply keeps appearing on the menu because regulars would complain if it stopped, which is a more honest kind of longevity than a dish deliberately preserved for nostalgia’s sake.

Grouse, when the season allows it, is treated with real reverence rather than the slightly perfunctory way some kitchens handle a seasonal ingredient purely because tradition demands it.

The Drinks List

Generous, thoughtful, and priced on the low side for Soho, which is a rarer combination in this postcode than it should be. The by-the-glass list in particular is worth working through across a longer lunch rather than committing early to a single bottle.

What You Will Pay

Set lunch, two courses, around £30. A full à la carte lunch with wine runs to about £75 per person, which for cooking of this consistency, in a room with this much genuine character, remains fair value even by the standards of the surrounding streets.

The Verdict

The most London-ly restaurant in Soho. You should eat here at least twice a year, and ideally more — the changing daily specials mean no two visits offer quite the same meal, even with the same favourites anchoring the menu.

What’s Being Said

A menu that changes with the seasons but never loses the thread — the kind of consistency that only comes from one chef staying put for over a decade. Lee’s continued presence in the kitchen is the real story here, more than any single dish; longevity like this in a Soho institution is increasingly rare.

Chefs of his standing frequently move on to consult, open a group of restaurants under their own name, or step back from daily service once the reputation is secure; Lee has instead stayed working the pass at Quo Vadis year after year, and the daily specials chalked up depending on what arrived that morning are the clearest evidence he’s still cooking, not simply presiding over a kitchen that runs on inertia.

That distinction is easy to miss from outside, but it’s the difference between a restaurant coasting on a famous name and one still actively earning it.